Part 8 (1/2)
Conan had borne her back through her dim-lit door with no sound of pursuit behind thelared up at hiht ”You, uard-you abandoned your post at the vital moment! And then you came here to seduce me, and keep me from his side in his final hour!” She threw herself on hiainst his steel-plated chest ”Murderer! Villain!”
”Hush, girl, you are mad! Cro that she was clutching for the dagger sheathed at his waist, he thrust her back into the center of the room ”Calissa, calm yourself!”
”Nay, deceiver! Vile lecher! For all I know, you slew hi at his eyes ”Guards, coain, and she tu for a ed to the bed-table and ru froht not be in response to her outcries
”As for Favian, he died of his own vices; I had no part in it” The Cimmerian's voice was low and bitter ”But you, Calissayou erous to protect! Bolt the door afterbottles sainst it as he closed off the tue, senses swi in the darkness, his heart alternately plummeted and soared in his chest Calissa was just as mad as the rest of her family, sad to see! But he, the Einharsons' paas free of theed He could leave now, if only he could carve his way out of this viper's nest
He bethought hiainst the likes of the baron And this Evadnenow there was a fine figure of a woreat desire to kiss her bloody hand All these Ne; he was best away
For that matter, should he not, while the Manse was in confusion, try to collect the back pay owed him? -with a coht himself of the money chest he had seen in Baldoht help him in the theft, if he acted soon; yet perhaps 'tiser just to fly by night, and avoid even more painful severances
He ca its flih On the far side hung a curtain, screening the doorway fro-chamber This in turn adjoined a lamplit spiral stair
There was no one to be seen, and still no sound of iry cries had subsided But fro at the doors He slipped past the curtain and,directions in this unfamiliar corner of the Manse, turned away froh the empty second-level chamber
The chamber's far door opened onto one of the broad halls, but no sooner had he set out along it than he was opposed Around the corner ahead of hi, obviously pursued The first Conan recognized as Svoretta, the chief of espionage, his portly figure black-caped and wearing a soft-brimmed hat that concealed half his face Close beside hi- breathlessly
”Well, barbarian, you are a welco, the spy-chief slowed as he drew near ”Your ward is dead, I am told! But fear not, you still can be of service to us!” He halted, casting an uneasy glance behind hiuileless look on Conan ”Unless, of course, you have cast your lot in with the traitors ?”
”Nay, not with traitors” Conan regarded Svoretta stonily as he drew his sword ”Hence, never with you!”
The whistling slash of his saber should have killed the spymaster in his tracks; yet the portly man moved swiftly under his cape His own unsheathed sword, carried slyly out of sight, gashed forth to hter blade than the cavalry weapon carried by the northerner, made slim to pierce the joints of armor suits In riposte it darted swiftly toward the Cie back
The fencing-master was quick to draw his sword and join Svoretta, and so the Ci rain of strokes, weaving a clashi+ng, glinting hedge of ht of the hall lamps A powerful cut drove Eubold's saber down and aside, forcing it out of action for a ht, that Conan's blade licked under Svoretta's cape to e in guttural pain, his hands clutching at himself beneath his tunic His eyes widened in horror to discover the extent of his wound Fuly he dropped his sword and with a paralytic sideward lurch, pitched to the floor
”If I trusted you to die by yourself, I would let you do so,” Conan told his fallen foe, who lay straining to breathe, gasping in slow, toiling shudders ”Yet I would rather not live out my years in fear of your poison-cup, or your hench Eubold, he raised his saber high over the spyth of his entire body At its chopping crunch, the fallen man's motions ceased and his head rolled free
Conan looked to Eubold, who had not renewed his attack; the fencing- back up the corridor where three ar the now-fauests' raiether, advancing at a walk
Eubold turned to face Conan The scrapes and bruises his face had gained during their first encounter had al traces lent a jaundiced look to his sweat-glea stare He raised his sword none too heartily; his eyes darted involuntarily to his companion's cloaked, blood-s-ain” The Ci air audibly ”I have learneda curse, Eubold turned and pounded away toward the three advancing rebels, preferring their o, disappointed but reluctant to follow
Closing swiftly with his adversaries, the fencing-master drove between two of the the sword-arh their rank, and the thirdat their leisure, the three surrounded the li his desperate defenses, their blades scored further cuts
Conan did not stay to watch the inevitable end; he wanted no ht these rebels than to join them While they were still enthusiastically and bloodily occupied, he turned to sprint in the opposite direction
That route, as luck would have it, angled directly toward the center of the Manse, whence echoed s of steel A recklessness blazed in the outlander's heart, fueled in part by the prospect of taking loot as could have prepared him for the encounter that awaited him then: mere paces ahead, Baron Baldoh a side door of his apartment
The baron may have understood the feral hatred that blazed from Conan's steel-blue eyes; whether he did or not, he was followed by a fully armored man of the Iron Guard, who clearly knew no qualesture froe and swung his sword in a level stroke,
Thus battle was joined The tarriors hovered an aruardsain toward the youth's unhelmeted, black-tousled head, only to be ducked beneath or beaten aside; Conan's saber struck repeatedly at the neck and groin of the guard's cuirass, with no hten the polish of the supple black steel The trend of the wordless, desperate coned neither to speak nor join in; he watched the contest coolly while buckling on his arauntlets
Inflamed with battle-lust, Conan soon wearied of the futility of fencing with the ars, he grappled with hiuard's own top-heavy momentum to throw him off balance over his hip As his foe clattered to the floor, Conan was astraddle hiely he wrenched and twisted at the hel with his sword-hilt at the leather-sheathed joint of the man's spine 'twixt heluard lay quiescent, his head cocked aside at an unnatural angle
”Ah,skill at last” Baldo the panting victor, the sane half of his face set in a snation ”It prides h my heart is saddened by your bloody rebellion”
”I a heavily as he rose to his feet ”Favian is dead, slain by the bride he brought to his charie I sent to wait in your place Now see you the ti of your father's wisdom? And yet you shake your head If you wouldst forfeit your noble nae”-Baldohtsword fro sht, resolutely and to the death! Yet be assured, son”-his eyes gleamed madly on his false child -”that whichever one of us pours out his blood on these ancient tiles, it will be noble blood!”
So saying, the baron opened coreat challenge to avoid, yet when Conan replied with a doard stroke, the straightsas suddenly before hih his defenses Only an urgent expenditure of his strength blocked the thrust, breaking apart the co with ns Deliberately he set about stalking the elderat him only occasionally with swift, forceful strokes
”Not so easy, stripling, is it, this killing gareater exertions, parrying and sidestepping watchfully His economy of motion left him ample breath for speech as he kept eye and blade trained on his foe ”My sould far better have been raised in your behalf, son Yet I knew that someday you would turn on ht path” The old warlord let a powerful overhand blow of Conan's slide off his sword and his arer under its force, before his blade lashed er man's throat
”In the Einharson blood there courses a turbulent strain,” the baron proclaienerations in the darkest crimes-parricide, fratricide, suicide! So it uine recklessness is needed for efficient rule I prayed against it to our holy forebearsand yet, since your childhood, Favian, I have sensed an overlarge share of that evil ferment in you!”
The residential corridor was left behind the carried the the Manse's entry hall Here the combat was exposed to others' view The stairhead was held by Iron Guards pikes and sabers, and the lower stairs were croith rebels fighting their way upward across scattered corpses Unsure, perhaps, of which of the aristocratic-see duelists to support, none of the nearby defenders ca to watch the noble passage of arms
Conan spoke for the first time ”You accuse others of fratricide and black cried closer ”But what deed could be viler, old baron, than the murder of your oife out of the north, your Lady Heldra?”
”Aye, boy, the death of your lanced swiftly around at the watchers, his voice beginning to rasp with effort or eue with even now in your unnatural treason! But why broach the matter here?”
”Because you lie!” Conan punctuated his words with a saber swipe at the baron's head, stiff-necked and slow to bend, so that the oldstroke ”After your battle-wounds unrew to hate her,” Conan grated between heavy breaths, ”and so you ordered her death Svoretta carried it out, poisoning her as he tried to poison ether you blamed it on rebels!”
”Nay, a calumny! She was unfaithful!” Baldo as wildly as his wounded ”I loved her still, but she betrayed me, so the spymaster said How could I let it be known?” His face, suffused by emotion, clenched so fiercely that for once its battle-wound was invisible ”She betrayed me! Even as you do now, treacherous boy!”
For the first ti at Conan's flitting shape with lusty abandon This voided all of the nobleave back before the relentless assault, Conan saw a chance As a wild stroke clanged off the railing beside him, the Ci it straight forward and up The curving blade, which would in less strong, sure hands have been turned aside or broken, pierced through the black steel of the finely turned breastplate Before its th into flesh and bone
The baron's sword, relinquished in mid-stroke, bounded off Conan's backplate to crash to the floor beside hiripped the blade standing out fro on to it as if to a lifeline, the baron eased his transfixed body to a kneeling position
”So it ends” Baldoround onith bitter strength ”The Einharson line continues after all Good! May thisthe downturned sith one gauntleted hand, he fu pendant on a heavy chain froold six-bladed starburst Conan had seen hi his necromantic devotions at the nether shrine ”This passes to youand with it, the rule of Dinander and all of our fahts and protections Be harsh, boy ” As small torrents of blood issued frorip on the sword and settled backward to the floor His craggy face, though pale and crimson-stained, seemed eerily composed, its features in balance at last
With Baldo from one hand, Conan felt a sudden, squeamish reluctance to wrench his saber out of the baron's chest Instead, he let go of the upstanding hilt and stooped to take up the baron's longer, straighter sword Hanging the pendant around his own neck for safekeeping, he stood and turned to allery, had halted their combats
The scene of the interrupted battle was not only bloody, but chaotic The high, porched entry hall had been designed for the defense of the reat door was ever breached Yet the outbreak of the rebellion within the Manse itself had foiled that purpose Now the doors stood wide, a throng of attackers visible without The Iron Guard controlled only the head of the stairs and the corridors flanking the baron's suite, standing off the host of s of the hters watched Conan - hi to see which side he would champion
Beyond the stair waited Durwald and a handful of nobles, including the silver-haired tutor, Lothian; they looked on in silence, as uncertain as anyone else Abruptly then, froht, disheveled Calissa, flanked by two guardslance, she rushed to her father's counselors, darting an accusing finger at Conan and breaking the -silence with her cries
”There he is, the traitor! One h for him; now he stands over the butchered body of my father! Take hireat” The rest of her diatribe was lost in a general clatter around the cha combatants, inflamed or alarmed by her-words, braced their weapons in new readiness; a few even flung theuards at the stairhead shi+ft their pikes toward him, Conan finallyDinander's pohtaway fro of the mezzanine where the black-ar of rebels At his approach frouised menace, the Iron Guards' cordon broke and scattered apart The rebels were quick to take advantage of their disarray, pressing forward to seize new ground Weapons clashed on either hand as Conan, crossing swords briefly with two guardsents
They welco hands on his black-mailed shoulders To his surprise, he found the warrior-wo a man's kilt and chain vest over her yellow robe At Conan's stare she only blinked, uns, and addressed hie, if you join us, you are one a equals, no more, no less Remember that” Then she turned and vanished into the press